feel about um the Russian situation right now
well i am more uh
more scared than than ever actually by it because it to me if you look at the uh situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe it closely parallels the situation around the turn of the century with the fall of the Ottoman empire
um-hum
um it is very unstable right now
yeah and there's a the huge power vacuum and no one to control the local economies over there the inner
uh trade between those republics and the satellites uh or what used to be the satellites of the Soviet Union and i'm afraid that it's just going to gonna have regional
right
infighting just like there was before World War One and we're going to be stuck in another war
yeah i'm it's really scary because i you know i i had a conversation or i heard it over a conversation that they had with Gorbachev on the news
uh-huh
stating that he needs to get you know like a United States set up over there because they're not gonna make the winter
without the food and the electricity
right
and if they don't if if people don't have food and electricity they're gonna go after it somehow and they're and they're gonna fight it out instead of doing it calmly like he's trying to have done now
sure
right
um i went over to the Soviet Union uh about three years ago
oh really
and it was very sad they it the economy over there is very poor um
yeah
and it's worse now
oh yeah and when we went over there we were not allowed you know off this bus
or you know into the you know onto the streets or anything like that well when i went i did anyway and i got out and um
um-hum
um you know yeah i know it we barely got back but um
rebel you
we went into the black market where kids our age were you know i'm twenty three
uh-huh
yeah
and we went down there and these kids wanted anything that was made that was American Lee jeans your coats your shoes anything that you brought with you and they'd give you things
uh-huh
because they wanted these clothes and they looked just like we did because they would ask for these clothes and stuff so after you came out it was very sad people were in the real drab clothing and whenever you bought something you'd have to go through four or five lines to get it
right
and it was you know really sad to see that but um
yeah it it's something else over there everything's breaking down when we the motel we stayed in you know you could only stay in American hotels
sure
and uh
um the we didn't have water for four days and when we did get it it looked like apple juice it was awful and and you know to see how they live over there
oh God hey wait a minute the water comes out here it it looks like that too
right and it was just real sad to see it that way
but um you know like our tour guide was a sixteen year old girl um she was married and living with her parents and you know they live in the apartment buildings around there
uh-huh
jeez
and because she got the job because she could speak English
uh-huh
so she got to be a tour guide and it was really bizarre because um she couldn't shave her legs or anything and they couldn't get razors and so um she asked for us to go into the American shop and buy her razors so that she could do that
and it was just something else to see
the wonders of Western culture get to shave your legs
yeah you know
yeah and and well you know and you know everywhere i went over there it was it was like that but she wanted to do that and and so did every you know all the kids that were our age were
you know wanting to be more like that and so it's really scary because there's gonna be something something's gonna have to happen
uh-huh
so you did this one year in college where'd you go to school
yeah yeah i did um Northern State in Aberdeen South Dakota
South Dakota no i'm an officer in the Air Force at uh Griffis Air Force Base
yeah
oh okay
yeah so i'm i'm just a lieutenant i'm only twenty four so i'm it's interesting hearing from someone
okay
of my perspective i always think that my view is always so much older and uh more conservative but uh
uh-huh
uh-huh
i don't know i've maybe done older spent a little more time learning from history than the average armchair uh
uh-huh
right listening to the TV type of thing um-hum
yeah yeah and everybody's jumping up and down praising all this and you you know it great
they don't understand what's gonna happen
yeah you know there's
i think there's only one thing that's worse than the Communist government and that's no government
that's right and on right now they're bordering on that because there's nothing there
yeah there there really are
you know you've got two leaders one thinks he's doing it and one Gorbachev thinks he's you know got it and
you know Yeltsin's got half and and the KGB is supposedly gone but um
well i don't think uh
uh i don't think you can rule out anything like that
no you can't you can't they're to they were too powerful for too long
and especially when
when it gets to the point where things are really desperate then uh then the military becomes a threat as well
right
and uh
right
you know there the military still has a lot of power
um-hum
and somebody has to control all those nuclear weapons it's not even the the situation isn't even is so much
